Dr. V
Shubhalaxmi, General Manager (Education), BNHS in conversation with Sanskriti
Menon, Editor, Education for Change describes how her work is helping address
the ‘nature education deficit’ in Mumbai. An entomologist and a Fulbright Fellow,
Shubhalaxmi has been with the BNHS for about twenty years. As the head of the
BNHS Conservation Education Centre (CEC), she has shaped a number of nature education
programmes and helped CEC reach out to over 15000 people every year.

EfC:
You’ve been with BNHS for several years. How did you ﬁ rst get interested in
wildlife and who or what has shaped your interest?

V
Shubhalaxmi (VS): Being a science student, I was always attracted towards
wildlife, however being a student member of BNHS, the interest grew stronger
and ﬁnally when I got recruited there was no stopping for me to explore the
wilderness of our country.

EfC: When did you make the
transition to education about environment and biodiversity?

V Shubhalaxmi (VS): It may
sound strange but I started my career with BNHS in 1993 as an Administrative
Assistant where I worked in accounts and ofﬁce administration for three years,
but I meanwhile I pursued with my M.Sc. by research which ﬁnally helped me to
get into the education ofﬁcer post when the vacancy was open in 1997, since
then it has been a self-learning and exploratory phase for me.

EfC: What is the main thrust of
the conservation education programmes at BNHS?

VS: Our
education and communication is about Biodiversity. We feel that people,
especially in Mumbai, are aware about issues like plastic waste and pollution
and they experience these in their day to day life.

But,
seeing and touching a delicate thing like a plant tendril or watching a butterﬂy
emerge – these are experiences that city people rarely get the opportunity for.
The ambience of the CEC, the forest silence and sounds, these are perhaps
restful and rejuvenating. People come back
again and again just to experience the forest. Some participants in our
programmes at CEC don’t want indoor sessions – they just want to be in the
forest.

So, our main aim if to
facilitate these experiences for people and to garner support for biodiversity
and wildlife. We of course have a number of programmes that go deeper into
learning how to care for biodiversity.

EfC: What are some of the major
conservation education initiatives of BNHS?

VS: The
major educational activities are being carried out through the BNHS
Conservation Education Centre at the edge of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.
We have regular day-visit based programmes, online courses as well as custom
designed educational programmes for colleges, corporate groups etc. (See box)

The key thing about our
programmes is that we are seeking to transform. So, we incorporate activities
for seeing, doing, experiencing. Activities such as ‘Breakfast with Butterﬂies’,
‘Meal with Moths’ and ‘Fun with Frogs’ are highly interactive and combine
nature education with fun. These are followed up with support for people to set
up their own Butterﬂy Gardens. They can buy host and food plants from us, as
well as contact us for advice.

EfC: Are you seeing change, are
people getting more involved?

VS: We’ve had families coming
for programmes because the children had a school picnic at CEC. Students who
were involved in nature club activities have come back as volunteers, and some
have gone on to do doctoral research in wildlife. We have been offering summer
internships for students. Every year, eight to ten students become involved in
conservation work way in some or the other manner.

EfC:
Which parts of your work do you enjoy most of all?

VS: I
enjoy material development including books for teachers and slide shows etc, as
well as designing innovative programmes that people would enjoy as well as
learn from. The aspect I feel most involved in and concerned about is getting
schools to integrate research into nature education. I personally believe that
every student should take up a small research project involving data
collection, collation, interpretation, analysis and presentation. I’ve been
guiding teachers and students to take up such studies in and around their
schools. For example, students of Gold Crest school in Navi Mumbai is in the
middle of a concrete jungle, but we took them for several ﬁeld trips. Different
groups made observations about different aspects of the local environment.
Another school in Alibag was able to make a number of nature observations in
their own school campus.

Courses, such as on Leadership in Biodiversity Conservation and
Entomology, offered in blended learning form in distance mode with components
of ﬁeld trip, ﬁeld work, chat sessions and face to face sessions

The
short duration programmes are of several types and typically involve a day
visit to CEC with outdoor and indoor activities. We also offer camps with a
stay at the CEC. We have developed thematic packages such as ‘Child
in the Wild’ which is about survival strategies, ‘Eco-warriors’
which provides insights into community linkages with the forest.

We also develop a few special
programmes every year providing unique nature experiences, such as
‘Breakfast with Butterflies’, ‘Brunch with Birds’, ‘Meal with Moths’, and
‘Fun with Frogs’. These are highly interactive, combining nature education
with a few fun activities as well, such as face painting with nature patterns,
comparing the human body to that of other species such as the ability to jump,
leap, run, or weight or arm span etc.

We also
organized a Green Lifestyles workshop last year.

For
those who are interested to go much deeper into wildlife investigations, we
have the Scientist for a Day programme. Participants help to survey the ﬂora
and fauna of the forests around us. We have been conducting monthly surveys of
plants, birds, herps etc.

School
Outreach

BNHS conducts lectures and
educational sessions at schools in Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai. Students are
taken for nature trails and also introduced to the project method.

Volunteer
Training

Organized every year, the
Volunteer Training helps young and old volunteers work out a schedule and learn
to contribute to and manage some of the educational programmes. The work
contribution of the volunteers is immense since we have a pretty small staff
otherwise. The volunteers bring in their own experiences and enrich the content
and quality of the programmes too.

Educational
Materials

A
number of ﬁeld guides, posters, slide shows and activity books have been
developed. Educational Activity Trunks including exhibits, activity support
materials etc have also been developed. The CEC staff themselves use these in
conducting some of the outreach activities in schools.

Education for Change is the ENVIS publication of the Centre for Environment Education, India. EfC seeks to share views and experiences of education for sustainability.
EfC is supported by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, under its ENVIS programme.(http://www.envis.nic.in/)